Original subtitles

do something you're very passionate

about and don't try to chase what is

kind of the hot Passion of the day

people say you you have to have a lot of

passion for what you're doing and it's

totally true and the reason is uh is

because it's so hard that if you don't

any rational person would give up it's

really hard and you have to do it over a

sustained period of time so if you don't

love it if you're not having fun doing

it you don't really love it uh you're

going to give up so just go and do it

try learn from it you you know you'll

fail at some things that's a learning

experience that you need so that you can

take that onto the next

experience um and don't let people who

you may

respect uh and who you believe know what

they're talking about don't let them

tell you it can't be done because often

they will tell you it can't be done and

uh it's just cuz they don't have the

courage to try I think people that look

for great ideas to make money uh you

know aren't nearly as as successful as

those who say okay what do I really love

to do what am I excited about what do I

know something about you know what's

kind of interesting and compelling it's

uh very rewarding when you work on

something you think is going to make a

big difference and

uh yeah it's a little bit harder but I

think uh I think the passion that one

might bring with it

uh brings so much more energy to that

that you're more likely to succeed you

have to have an emotional investment in

what you're doing if you don't love what

you're doing um failure is pretty much

guaranteed Success is Not Guaranteed by

any means but failure is much more

likely if you don't love what you're

doing if you know exactly what you want

to be you need to spend as much time

with people that are actually that

already you know one of the things that

I do is I question a lot of things um

and you can do that in a good way and a

bad way but hopefully if you try to get

people to motivate why they're doing

something and their way of thinking you

know the worst thing you can end up with

is a situation where um you get told

well this is the way it's always been

that's the worst ever that's a

non-answer instead ask yourself you

know given everything we have today is

there a way we can make this better and

so when we're coming up with

ideas you know we always ask ourselves

um what kind of New Market is this

creating and then also what what part of

my day and and what problem is it

solving and so I've gone as far as

taking an entire catalog of my day from

the moment I like open my eyes and

writing down every single thing I do and

then asking myself like is there

something here if you're not coming up

with 10 ideas a day that's why I have

this thing if I'm not coming up if I'm

not filling up this page every single

day then my idea muscle will atrophy and

I started this in 2001 and I still do it

every single day like you have to come

up with ideas every single day or the

idea muscle atrophies the good news is

after about six months of doing that

you're like a machine like people get

surprised at how many ideas you could

just have anywhere but

understand that naturally nobody is

interested in your idea the world could

care less and you have to persuade them

and you have to show that you're the one

person out there that can do it when it

comes to changing the world what I

learned from Steve Jobs is if you

believe in a Macintosh if you believe in

iPhone iPod iPad if you believe enough

then you will see it because other

people will believe in it other people

will create software other people will

create products so you need to Foster

the belief in what you are dreaming so

that it becomes a reality which is very

different than saying I don't expect

anybody to believe it until I see it you

need people to believe it before they

can see it don't necessarily think that

you have to have the home run and the

huge Apple computer on your first start

I spent a long time in my life with

skills just building little devices for

fun for fun is one of the key things

because that drives you to think and

think and think and make it better and

better and better than you ever would if

you're doing it for a company build

things at first for yourself that you

would want for somebody aspiring to you

know take things to the next level or to

even surpass their Wildest Dreams

there's always going to have to be an

element of luck but I think more

important is putting yourself in a

business that can be ubiquitous that

that can that really doesn't have

limits because otherwise there's always

going to be a grind to it but if if the

business if if if it can't be something

that you can visualize every business

using or every consumer using it's going

to be tough to scale to be big enough or

to have the perceived value you want an

idea about what you can say I know it

sounds like a bad idea but here's

specifically why it's actually a great

one you want to sound crazy but you want

to actually be right cuz when you're

trying to differentiate when you're

trying to do something different there's

going to be that gut moment that gut

sense is this right is this not right if

you're not if you're not having doubt

you're not pushing the boundaries far

enough don't think about how do I get

really how I get big fast that will

happen if you actually build something

super meaningful and super important so

don't think about you know what is the

quickest way to success think about what

is the best way to building something

important that the world really needs

this little idea explains why some

organizations and some leaders are able

to inspire where others aren't let me

Define the terms really quickly every

single person every single organization

on the planet knows what they do

100% some know how they do it whether

you call it your differentiating value

proposition or your proprietary process

or your USP but very very few people or

organizations know why they do what they

do and by why I don't mean to make a

profit that's a result it's always a

result by why I mean what's your purpose

what's your cause what's your belief why

does your organization exist so when we

see a kid with a lemonade stand it's

different than when we see a vending

machine spelling lemonade even if it's

exactly the same product cuz the story

around it is what people are paying for

so when I meet small business people all

I ask them is not what's their balance

sheet but what's their story why should

I pick you why do I care about what

you're doing and if you start giving me

all this inside baseball statistics

about why you're 2% better than some

other competitor I'm already glazed over

because that's not part of the way I see

the world that I have to want this to

exist in the world I I have to not so

it's a similar rule just say if this was

successful and I had nothing and I got

no and I was not involved and I got no

money off it or wasn't what I want it to

do well and that's a great check I think

to know if you really feel good about

the idea and can be passionate about it

one of the things I advise entrepreneurs

to do is when you have an idea a classic

entrepreneurial impulse is to hold the

idea close to you and not go tell people

because oh the idea is so special right

that's almost always a mistake go talk

to why is that a mistake it's a mistake

because your actual real competitive

Advantage is not that you have this idea

that you have locked away in your closet

which may or may not be accurate and you

have no idea which it is uh your your

actual competitive Advantage is if

you're assembling the intelligence

around does this idea work what is the

right teams what is the right learnings

and we're essentially in motion the

hardest thing to do is start um you have

all these ideas and everyone has an idea

but it's really about executing the idea

and building the idea and attracting

other people to help you work on the

idea that is the biggest challenge but

the the way to begin is to get the idea

out of your head draw it out you know um

Talk About It program it if you're a

programmer or make it if you're building

something like you don't have to be the

best but you have to be dangerous right

you have to learn just enough to be

dangerous to build an idea concept it

and show it to the world and then it

turns out there are lots of other people

including all 170 employees that work at

Instagram who are much better at doing

all that stuff than I am but you need to

find people who can you know be drawn to

the idea that you build and and then

they end up taking it and um and making

it even better you know one way to

conceptualize what makes a good product

is you know good engineering is part of

it good design is part of it but really

it's um one way I think about it is at

least is uh maximizing the probability

that someone shows up at the front door

of you know your store or your website

or or whatever it is and ends up with a

Sol problem and often times the best

methodology is to start with the perfect

experience with just one person get that

right and then figure out how to scale

something great instead of scaling

something not so great and then trying

to improve it that's really hard to do

and so I think when you are starting a

new business you uh you don't want to go

after Giant Markets you want to go after

small markets and you want to take over

those markets quickly constantly seek

criticism

yeah uh

a a well a wellth thought out critique

of whatever you're doing is as valuable

as gold

um and you should seek that

from everyone you can but particularly

your friends if you're not utilizing an

online community then you're at a

disadvantage to those who

are you can be asking online communities

what they think about your ideas or if

they have any advice with what you're

working on not only will you hear from

people who are passionate about the

subject but you'll be hearing from

people all around the world each with

their own experiences and stories that

can help you and there are a lot of

people from whom we can learn a lot and

I think like you know the one piece of

advice is like don't underestimate

anyone you come across ever like whether

they're you know uh a blue collar worker

waiting for the bus or they're you know

helping you at your they're the server

bartender at the restaurant or they're a

lower ranking employee I mean the

smartest leaders I've ever seen have

always gone around the room and asked

for everybody's opinion most startups

that fail Do It ultimately because they

did not make something that people

wanted they made something that um you

know that they thought thought people

would want um but they were either in

denial about it about you know whether

it was actually any good um or somebody

else came along and made something that

people wanted even more the best piece

of advice that that we've figured out as

we've been doing cor square is not to

not to let other people distract what

you're doing there's always haters that

say your idea is stupid this idea is

never going to work um don't even bother

doing that cuz someone else is going to

do it before you do and if we listen to

all those all that feedback that we were

getting all that negative feedback we

would never built things we would never

prototype things and that's how we

really got to where we are like we saw

things that we wanted to build and we

just went out and built them and it

turns out when you build stuff that you

like to use um there a good chance that

there's thousands of other people that

want to use it too and so it's not just

about doing focus groups it's not just

about you know double-checking your

vision it really is about integrating

this concept of testing our ideas

rigorously throughout the product

development process throughout the

marketing process even as we scale up

but what we really need to do is think

about what is the the smallest possible

test that I can run for this idea for

this concept for this Theory get it out

there and get customers using it because

your customers are going to be the ones

to tell you if it's really working or

not like like there's almost this

expectation that you have to have in

your mind this this sort of I'm going to

change the world sort of make a dent in

the universe kind of kind of ambition

right but it's actually okay early on to

just kind of solve small problems in

layers until you actually get to a point

where you have the capacity to do that

what this all comes down to is doing

something exceptional for your users

whether it's in community whether it's

in connection or whether it's in Design

This Is Our Big Advantage as a startup

is that we can actually get away with

doing this we can make this the core

part of why we're doing business I think

you should be spending your money on on

um on teaching and and sharing and so

that might mean hiring a writer or two

perhaps instead of a marketing person

you know and start writing and start

getting people to listen to what you're

saying you can't talk about yourself all

the time because no one's going to come

back for that but you have to talk about

things that are relevant to your

industry or ideas that you have and

start to build that audience up I do

think that one thing that's important is

especially if you're a founder or a

technical founder is to realize that you

can't do everything and even if you can

you shouldn't you should find a great

partner no matter what it is that you're

doing um and you should look for someone

who is very high intelligence uh very

high energy and very high integrity and

you need all three of those you can't

compromise on any one of them otherwise

you'll end up with either someone who's

not smart which is does you no good or

someone who's not hardworking which also

does you no good or the worst case is

you end up with a smart hardworking

crook who ends up working against your

interests and uh Integrity is something

that takes a lot of time spent with

someone to figure out the most important

thing when you're working with people

early is that you guys line up on on

what your goals are um that's that's

really that sounds really basic but you

can to totally it can be fine you can

want to build a small business um that

makes money and you don't have to go to

an office every day or you can want to

build a huge company you can want to

build Google but I think you have to be

really really aligned on that when you a

lot of Corporations have they might call

them core values or guiding principles

or so on but the problem is usually

they're very lofty sounding they kind of

read like a press release the marketing

department put out uh they sound just

like they're competitors and maybe you

learn about it on day one of your job

but then it becomes this meaningless ple

on the lobby wall well we wanted to come

up with committable core values and by

committable meaning we're willing to

hire or fire People based on those

values uh completely independent of

their actual job performance the

definition of values is there the

behaviors or principles that you

religiously adhere to within your

company and when I say religious I mean

that no amount of data will sway you in

from um from those princip principles

and the degree to which that you have

the courage to um maintain your

conviction around those ideas is the

degree to which you're going to be

successful over the long term a company

is simply a group of people um and uh as

a leader of people uh you have to be a

great listener um you have to be a great

motivator uh you have to uh be very good

at praising and looking for the best in

people um you know people are no

different from from fly if you water

flows they flourish if you um praise

people they flourish and um and that's a

critical attribute of um of a leader um

so I kind of like half jokingly with

with a lot of people say that you know

my job is basically like to be to be the

assistant for the rest of the company

like my job is to to make sure that like

you have what you need um that it's and

and basically you have everything you

need to kick ass like that's my job if

you don't have that that then let me

know cuz I'm not doing my job you know

there are a lot of things that are

outside of your control um a lot of

external circumstances will depend like

determine the success of your idea

whether you know the market timing is

right for this new kind of service um or

whether uh people you know whether a

customer like the econom is right for

for for your kind of service right

whether um you meet the right people who

will finance your company um many many

external circumstances are like outside

of your control and like but will affect

the outcome and you know you have to

like be okay with that another quality

that I think is important is kind of

being flexible minded or open-minded I'm

not saying you shouldn't have a you know

vision for for your idea or your product

but you need to be open to changes so

many things go wrong when you're

starting a company and often I think

people ask you know what mistakes U

should you avoid making and you know my

answer to that question is don't even

bother trying to avoid mistakes because

you're going to make tons of mistakes

right and the the um the important thing

is actually learning quickly from

whatever mistakes you make and not

giving up right and I mean there there

are things every single year of

Facebook's existence that could have

killed us or made it so that it it just

seemed like moving forward and making a

lot of progress just seemed intractable

but you just kind of bounce back and you

learn and um nothing is impossible you

just have to kind of keep running

through the walls the two things we

really zero in on on people are um you

know two things they sound simple they

end up being very difficult um courage

and genius

um courage is the one we talk about a

lot because it's the one that people can

learn um you know courage courage which

is to say not giving up in the face of

adversity um you know just being

absolutely determined to succeed you

know is something that you can you can

like force yourself to do it can be very

painful you can force yourself to do it

the genius part is a little bit hard to

force yourself to do um you know courage

without genius might not get you where

you need to go but genius without

courage almost certainly won't and I

think the reality uh is just you know

not quite So Glamorous there's sort of

there's an ugly side to uh being an

entrepreneur uh and also just more

importantly uh what what you're actually

spending your time on is is just a lot

of hard work uh Sam mentioned this but

you're basically just sitting at your

desk heads down focused um answering

customer customer support emails doing

sales figuring out hard engineering

problems um so it's really important

that you kind of like go in with with

eyes wide open optimism has a place but

I think even more so for the first time

entrepreneur you need to be

pragmatically pessimistic what I mean by

that is you need to Define all of the

worst case scenarios in terms of

financial loss time loss Etc look at

what you will learn if that happens and

accept and come to terms with that

before you ever start if you don't do

that and you go straight into battling

the world trying to conquer the world

with rose col glasses on the first time

you hit a major hiccup you're going to

become really demoralized and you will

quit if you don't love it you won't make

it through the long period of pain that

is inevitable so uh make sure that you

take care of yourself during the process

make sure that you take care of uh your

mental health your physical health while

you're doing it because it's a long road